Today another post with a Ukrainian thematic, I saw this short piece by reporter Oksana Volgina, from about a week ago, just before Christmas. The piece is subtitled “Sketches of a Ukrainian Passenger”. Volgina’s byline says that she “collected” (and also most likely summarized/abridged) the material; which she found on a Ukrainian magazine called Odnarodyna, which is not linked, and I can’t find it on google. Hence, I don’t have the original, and that makes my own piece third-hand. Nonetheless, there is some human interest here, and Volgina’s piece is relatively short, so I translate in full. This map shows the 3 cities in question, with Ukrainized names. Lvov (spelled “L’viv” is the far west, close to the Polish border. Kharkov (spelled “Kharkiv” is in the East, not far from the Russian border. Nikolaev (spelled “Mykolaiv” is to the northeast of Odessa, just above Kherson, near the Black Sea.

TRANSLATION

After numerous propositions, on the part of the Ukrainian government, to do away with all railroad ties (between Ukraine and) Russia, there are very few trains left entering the Russian Federation (from the Ukraine). The publication Odnarodyna published the notes of a Ukrainian passenger about three (remaining) trains uniting these two states. According to the woman (passenger), despite the fact that most trains between the Ukraine and Russia have been cancelled, the residents of “Nezalezhnaya” [Ukrainian word for “Independent”, now used mostly sarcastically] still go to visit their neighbors. And thus she was able to travel on three major routes and to chat with the other passengers.

The Lvov-Moscow Train

The Lvov-Moscow train

Most of the passengers on this one were Western Ukrainians who had already moved to Russian cities to find work (and now live there). [The implication is that they are on a break and visiting their families back in the Ukraine.]

The language the passengers speak depends on the geography: in Mova [Ukrainian for “Ukrainian language”, also sometimes sarcastic] up to the border; then they switch to Russian or Surzhyk (patois). After the [2014] Maidan, these folks left for Russia to find work, because they didn’t want to go to Poland “where all the best jobs are already taken”, nor do they wish to emigrate to other countries. The passengers say, that if this train is cancelled, they will find another way to (get back and forth) — either through Belarus, or on foot, if need be.

The Kharkov-Moscow Train

The Kharkov train station

Judging by the conversations, this train is the most pro-Russian. There are many curses launched in the general direction of the Kiev government, and people express wishes that Donbass wins (the civil war).

The passengers want relations between Russia and the Ukraine to go back to the way they were. Although one does encounter a few Ukrainian patriots, who, for some reason, are travelling to the “aggressor” nation.

The Nikolaev-Moscow Train

Nikolaev town hall

In this train, the woman (writer/passenger) was able to meet a passenger who dreams of working in Tomsk and wants to see Kizhi. He is a Ukrainian himself, but he is convinced that this once-united people [Russians and Ukrainians] were specially (artificially) divided (by external forces). It doesn’t matter any more who was right and who was wrong, he remarked. “How many Ukrainians will admit to this, I can’t say,” the author quotes this hero. Meanwhile, the other passengers are pretty sure that Ukrainians will continue to travel to the Russian Federation. “Hence,” the author concludes, “aside from the unrequited maidens [Minister of Infrastructure Volodimir] Omelyan and [President] Poroshenko, the rest of the Ukrainians want to stay with Russia.”

That map is also inaccurate (perhaps deliberately) in its physical geography. It shows the details of the major rivers but not the details of the lakes and lagoons between southern Ukraine and Crimea: they’re shown as flat land instead. The suggestion is that Crimea is a natural peninsular projection of Ukraine.

Yup, that’s a highly politicized map! I was trying to find a map with the Russianized names of the towns, but all the readily-available maps on google (with the right size that I needed to embed) play along with the Ukrainized spellings. (Admittedly, I only did a brief search, because I was in a hurry.)

By the way, I have a new editorial policy on my blog now.
Under my new policy, I don’t play along with the Ukrainized spellings. For example, I used to type “LuHansk” instead of “LuGansk”, partially because, well, that’s the way people pronounce it, and I pronounce the phoneme “G” as a “H” myself.

I didn’t use to care about the spellings before, I was willing to play along (although — Mykolaiiv for Nikolaev?! – gimme a break, guys, when did you turn the greek N into M!), I only started caring because the spelling b.s. seems so important to the idiot Banderites!

Hence, from now on, until order is restored, only Russianized spellings and transliterations on my blog, even when writing about the Ukraine!
That policy will change if and when the Ukraine comes to its senses and rejoins the Russian World.